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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
CONTENTS
IN BROMPTON CEMETERY.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
THE MISSING CLUE.
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
HOPE ON, HOPE EVER.
No. 48.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1884.
IN BROMPTON CEMETERY.
‘In Memory of Theodore. Died Novemberthe 20th, 18—, aged three years,’ I am notgoing to tell you about the tragedy this littlelife represented, and how much suffering andhow many tears lie buried with my darling. Iput all that away—all useless regrets, all vainrepining, when I laid him under two great pine-trees,looking straight to the south, where themorning sun peeps earliest in faint yellow streaks,and the broad arms of the firs are ever heldlovingly over the little head, and shelter awayalike the drifting snow and summer heat—wherethe thrushes and blackbirds sing their matinsand vespers. They and the pink chaffinches,and bold-eyed sparrows, come half-timidly, half-hardily,with their little shy feet, close to mine,where I sit alone by my lamb—Rachel weepingfor her dead.
As time, God’s true physician, softened mygrief, and yet drew me to spend many hourswhere all was buried that could have piecedtogether a broken life and broken heart, I becamegradually interested in the great company ofthe dead lying round, and anxious to learn someword of the lives and histories, even of thosewhose birth and death-date make up all theworld shall ever write of them.
Right and left of my baby lie an old manand a young girl; he, a wealthy, honouredmerchant, who had lived ninety years of prosperousand successful existence. His tomb isof gray marble; the letters are cut well anddeeply; all its cold grandeur is perfectly keptup in unsurpassed cleanliness and order; but noone ever comes to put a flower on his grave. Theother grave, young Bessie’s, is also neglected,though in a different way. The letters are fadingfast from the crooked headstone; and the ivy thathas crept round it is so tangled, that before longthe little tomb will be quite covered. Bessie wassixteen years old, and went to her rest in theglowing July of 1851, when the fairy palace ofHyde Park, sparkling in its glory, promised, butdid not fulfil, the commencement of a long reignof peace and good-will to all the nations of theearth. Where are now those, I wonder, who leftBessie here!
Hard by lies many a different life from the